A little of this and that

As said with it being our summer break, nothing major happened on the quilting front.

I had a two machine setup.  On the front machine I worked on clue 3 of the On Ringo Lake mystery by Bonnie Hunter and on the machine at the back I stitched bindings to place mats.  This kept me from not getting bored with doing the same thing constantly. Unfortunately my one machine ran into a problem and needs to be checked out.  Fortunately I have another.

Friend Karin came over to take a look at my frame and even with one hand in a cast; she gave the free motion stitching a go.  Even her hubby tried his hand at it and they were both good.

Even with 5-year-old granddaughter having moved in for the holidays, I finished HALF of clue 3 of the mystery on 23 December but then decided to pack everything up and tidy my room until after Christmas.  It is time to concentrate on some serious food making and eating.  Wishing all a Merry Christmas.

Not much piecing or cutting done

My kids and grand-kids are on holiday already, even though I would still have to go to the office until 21 December but fortunately, with the office being closed, I just have to stay until I’m done with whatever needs to be done.  So for most days I can easily leave the office at 9 am (after having started at 7) but then it is family time.  I want to be home to have my grandkids over, pop something in the oven for us all to snack on or just order a meal to enjoy together, so until next year, I don’t believe I’ll do much quilting.

I do however need to seriously practise using a long arm.  At this stage (and I am female, I am allowed to change my mind after a while) I can spray baste and pin a quilt sandwich faster than I can load a quilt on a frame.  I can check my tension on a domestic machine immediately (after about an inch of 2 of stitching) unlike on the frame where I can only check this after 11 or more inches.  However….. if only I watched Jamie Wallen’s video’s on tension when I used my domestic sewing machine, I would have had far less struggles with tension.  I adjusted my tension on the fame tremendously, thinking I am taking a huge risk, no way…. Jamie Wallen knows it all.  Go bonkers and have fun. This video can be watched HERE. Now if he mentions Longarm and you are a domestic machine user, just ignore one word, guaranteed, this works for every machine when doing free motion.

I think I now belong to every long arm, mid-arm and free motion group on FB and if I spend less time reading all the hints and tips on these or watch You Tube videos I could have had heaps op tops quilted but heck,  some of these people are simply walking encyclopaedias.  I need to listen to them al!  In this photo I am not showing off my fabric or quilting motif but check the tension, especially on the black backing.  I used black thread on the top and gold on the bottom….. not a single speck of either coming over to the other side.  This is my idea of perfect tension.

I finished the practise piece and I think I like the back side better than the front.

I also finally figured out that in order to have the quilting show up on a photo, I need to have the flash switched off in daylight and take the photo indoors.

Magnolia Mystery – 5

Phew, what a quilt workout I had! Finished joining my blocks before going to bed at 11 pm (extremely late for me) on Friday, got up at 04:30 this morning (normal wake-up time) and started joining blocks and rows into a quilt top.

Got the whole top done before granddaughter came over for a sleep-over.

This mystery can be found over HERE.

Magnolia Mystery – 4

Having 2 sewing rooms is turning out to be somewhat complicating my rather organised life.  At 04:30 Thursday morning I still cut a practise quilt top to get another go on my Qnique 14 quilting machine, while watching You Tube videos and making notes like crazy and then after work, what would I find?  The new clue to this mystery!

Total confusion for this little brain of mine, should I finish what I started this morning or simply abandon project 1 and get going with the mystery?  I then decided to have a nice big glass of wine while contemplating my choices.

While enjoying my wine my daughter came over so none of my plans realised, maybe it was time for a break.

Today after work I worked a little on my notes (loading, advancing and rolling a quilt on the Qnique and the frame) as well as putting the blocks of this mystery together.

Quilting friend Karin would have loved these blocks as she likes big block quilts and these ended up being 21” x 21” each.

On Ringo Lake, a Bonny Hunter mystery -2

After the grand-kids left Saturday morning, I got multi-tasking like crazy with my old trusted 15-minute-at-a-time routine.  Quilt, load laundry, quilt, do dishes, quilt, vacuum, quilt and before long I had every little hand- and finger mark off the furniture and a sparkling house and clean laundry.

Knowing that hubby had a golf game on Sunday I started cutting strips and units for the second clue so that I, apart from having to run a couple of errands, have nothing other than piecing to do.

The amount of cutting in the clue was monstrous and I wondered if it would ever end!

Being up early I got all the bedding done and even started piecing before a single shop opened. As much as I tried it was just one of those laid back lazy days and I couldn’t bring myself to quilt as much as I hoped and this is how far I got before calling it a day.

Finally got clue 2 done on Tuesday but first had to visit quilting friend Karin, who had a thumb operation and will be out of action for the next 6 weeks, poor soul!